AppChat’s Holdsworth: “Cowboys don’t cry”
John Holdsworth, founder and chief executive of start-up AppChat, says that, despite “challenges along the way”, the company is still eyeing a launch date of February 2013.
Speaking at the MyBroadband 2012 Conference at Vodaworld in Midrand, Holdsworth said: “We have had a few challenges along the way, but cowboys don’t cry.”
In August, the high court in Pretoria ruled in favour of Holdsworth’s former employer, Nashua ECN, finding that he had breached his restraint of trade while also soliciting his former colleagues to work for AppChat.
Holdsworth said that he would appeal the judgement, citing numerous factual errors.
Holdsworth was the founder and CEO of ECN, a provider of IP-based next generation network services. He sold ECN to JSE-listed Reunert for R200 million in July 2011.
AppChat is a mobile telecom start-up that aims to “significantly reduce mobile tariffs and increase call quality in South Africa”.
Speaking at Vodaworld on Wednesday (10 October), the ICT entrepreneur criticised the current mobile landscape in South Africa for being “as liberal as North Korea”.
He said that his new venture would cater for the niche high-end of the mobile market. He said that the corporate market is desperate for savings, wanting something “other than food cooked for them by operators”.
Holdsworth said that AppChat would aim to facilitate that, with the plan to provide one broadband bill across all technologies and devices.
He said that AppChat would even reimburse its customers where it was found that the group was at fault for poor service, including dropped calls.
Holdsworth reiterated his desire to provide one flat rate for all devices. “We may not be able to deliver that for another three years, but that’s our goal,” he said.
Technically, it is nearly possible, he stressed. “It’s a question of rolling out the infrastructure and that is what people should be asking for.”
Holdsworth claimed that people trusted estate agents more than they did mobile operators. “We want to take the mobile market and turn it upside down and inside out,” he said, adding that AppChat would aim to offer simple easy to understand mobile plans.
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